


Five Times Liz Lemon Destroyed The Kitchen

by leiascully



Category: 30 Rock
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-02
Updated: 2009-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-03 01:59:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liz Lemon can absolutely cook.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Liz Lemon Destroyed The Kitchen

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: n/a  
> A/N: My first _30 Rock_ fic!   
> Disclaimer: _30 Rock_ and all related characters belong to Tina Fey and NBC. No profit is made and no infringement is intended.

01\. So there was this one time that she thought it would be a good idea to invite her family, you know, for a real New York Thanksgiving. Macy's Day Parade, big old turkey, the works. She ordered a turkey from the deli on the corner and the grocery man gave her the eye, like, what, a shiksa can't cook a turkey? She can cook a turkey! Liz Lemon can absolutely cook a turkey. It's not like Thanksgiving is a Jewish holiday with a monopoly on turkey cooking. Okay, so she hasn't before, but she has an oven and a cookbook, and besides the things come with instructions and the Butterball hotline or whatever.

So the deli calls and tells her to come get this turkey and boy, it sure is big. She only got the big one because Dad eats so much and god, how's she gonna carry this thing home? She asks if there's a delivery boy and that guy gives her the eye _again_ and says no, so she has to schlep it home in her own two arms just hoping that squishiness is ice melting and not turkey juices. But she gets it home and she puts it in the oven, and nobody can tell her that Liz Lemon can't put together a Thanksgiving dinner. Only nobody ever told her that you have to cover a turkey, and her oven's pretty small anyway, and the fat or whatever gets on the oven coils or something - anyway, long story short, the fire alarm goes off, and she panics and grabs the extinguisher, and the whole thing just looks gross. She could probably peel off the skin and maybe they could still eat it. If her family complains about it, she'll just tell them it's some gourmet farm-raised heritage turkey and maybe they ought to just shut up.

But then the potatoes explode (stupid pressure cooker) and her gravy is lumpy and the stuffing is crunchy and this is only her trial run, and she's stressing out, and she can't call Jenna, and Jack's in the Caymans or some freakish non-holiday place, and Pete's not answering his phone, so she stomps on back to the deli and her family has a real New York Thanksgiving: matzoh ball soup, latkes, blintzes, and pierogi.

02\. One night she comes home and she hasn't eaten all day and it's just been the week from hell and _Floyd_ called to say he's engaged and she forgets that she has to take chicken soup out of the can before she microwaves it and the whole thing just kind of explodes and shut up, she wanted a new microwave anyway!

03\. Oh, and there was that one time when she was like, eight, and she tried to make pancakes? But the milk was kind of lumpy, or maybe it was the batter. Plus, she didn't stir it all the way, so it was all dry at the bottom, and she burned them because there was only a fork to turn them with, and they were kind of in pieces. Also they were crunchy. She's not really sure about that. Yeah. But she can make pancakes now. She just puts them in the microwave. She really needs to remember to get a new microwave.

04\. That time she made the cupcakes for the writers, with those melted mini candy bars in the middle? Yeah, that batch that made it into work was the third batch. She had to go _back_ to the convenience store for their last box of cake mix, and she forgot and put the frosting in the fridge. Her kitchen smelled like burned cupcakes for three days until she remembered to take the trash out. Plus, it wasn't even worth it, because Frank just devoured them. She should have stuck to snickerdoodles. That's her signature dish. Snickerdoodles are the one thing she can make. The Pilsbury man will never forsake her.

05\. Liz doesn't even know why she agreed to this. Except Jack was in his office talking about some food she'd never even heard of and she thought he was making it up, so she laughed at him. He did that thing he does where he stops in the middle of whatever he's saying and stands incredibly still like he wants to be a mime or something. Then he just stared at her for what felt like a hundred years. "Lemon, Lemon, Lemon," he said in that condescending Irish bastard way, "has there ever been anyone in the history of the world with such narrow horizons? You love food."

"I love food." She nods, totally lost. Biscuits and gravy sounds really good right now.

"And yet, you have never eaten," he says something that sounds like he's gargling.

"Noooo," she says, looking down at the floor to hide her skepticism.

"Gelato di Crema al Tartufo Bianco, Lemon," he says. "It's one of the great pleasures of life, and something everyone should experience. Even a rough-hewn peasant like you. Come over after the show. I have all the ingredients. It's really exquisite when it's homemade."

"You can cook? I thought you just ate at restaurants."

"Everyone can cook," he says. "Everyone with a decent education and some self-respect."

"I have those things! I have lots of those things!" she protests.

"Lemon, your idea of haute cuisine is IHOP. It's no wonder you can't get a man."

"It has international right in the name!" she says.

"Go do your show," he says, and she flounces out muttering to herself about who Jack Donaghy thinks he is anyway.

Somehow, she ends up at his apartment, in the kitchen, and he's got this incredible kitchen that's bigger than her entire apartment.

"Your kitchen is like a museum!" she says.

"Thank you," he says. "Don't touch anything. I would have preferred we not do this here, but I'm not risking my saucepans on your pathetic stove. I don't even know if you can get heavy cream in your neighborhood. And I'm not letting you touch the truffles. I will clean them, thank you. You may measure and stir."

She pours things into measuring cups and then into the copper-bottomed saucepan he puts on the stove like he's afraid of breaking it. She wouldn't even know it was copper; it's way shinier than any penny she's ever seen. He goes on about it for like five minutes, though, while she's busy spilling vanilla all over his countertops, and dropping the vanilla bean he makes her scrape under the burner. At least that smells good. Kind of. For the first couple of minutes. Jack does something with weird little lumps of dirt that he pretends are truffles - as if she hasn't had truffles at Starbucks, thanks - and makes her stir things while he's all lounging on the counter.

"I'll tell you a secret, Lemon," he says, smirking and holding his whiskey glass under his nose. "This is the _only_ thing I can cook. This and anything breakfast-related. Breakfast is key. How else are you supposed to express to your one-night stand that they should get the hell out of your apartment? The Poptart is a crucial shorthand. Meanwhile, French toast means that you can stay until noon, and Belgian waffles are a second date."

She's laughing, almost like this is fun, like they're friends, and she forgets to stir, and the whole concoction, cream and eggs and sugar and whatever it is, bubbles all over Jack's shiny stove and his shiny saucepan and all over the floor, and they use three towels cleaning it up, and then Jack scrapes together whatever's left and uses liquid nitrogen to freeze it and they eat it with their fingers and he's right, it's exquisite. So she didn't really destroy everything, but Jack is still never going to forget it or let her forget it, and for once, she's okay with that.

"You know it's just ice cream, though," she says, sucking the last of it off her fingers. "I could have gotten this at that gelato place down in the Village. It's just that your accent's terrible."

"Get over it, Lemon," he says, but he's smiling.


End file.
